


I'm Brave Enough Now (Almost)

by Schweet



Category: Original Work, poem - Fandom
Genre: F/F, Gay Pride, Healing, LGBTQ Themes, Queer Themes, Religion, Religious Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:27:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27241171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schweet/pseuds/Schweet
Summary: I'm trying my guys, some days are better, some aren't
Kudos: 1





	I'm Brave Enough Now (Almost)

This is me being brave enough to read from my list

I loved  **Her** because she made my body substantive and grounded my soul behind my eyes, preventing me from drifting behind and three inches to the left

I loved  _ her _ because she made me feel essential and bestowed upon me the duty of being her friend, I connected the feeling of her soul with wanting to be alive

I love myself because I never want to find myself in the three am swamp of my life without brandishing the torches of friends and the comfort of family twinkling in constellations spelling out their choices as to why they continue to love me

I love myself because the fight to love myself is far sweeter than the fight to remind myself why I am broken when everyone keeps telling me about how they love my smile, how I am amazing, how I will become someone fantastic someday

I love myself because I have learned to love the acid of the lemons and limes the universe continues to place between my teeth

I love myself because I will one day become who I want to be

I love myself because I am me

(Some days I don’t)

This is me being brave enough to read from my list

I love the fields of wildflowers that have grown amongst my cells as I am dipped by my ankle into the waters of self-care

Lavenders have been etched into my veins by the angels

And carnations wreathed between the hairs of my body by the ghosts of those who uprooted their own

I will encourage these flowers of mine to grow in the memory and honour of those who were razed by the pyres of fear and loathing fanned by the corruption of humans drunk on power and indulgences

I love the double rainbows that grace my crown like a halo of the saints I am convinced will reject me at the final gate

Saints who my mother has told me are like me

Saints whose halos are rainbows

Saints I still cannot separate from the words of my church’s elders

Even though Archangel Micheal’s soft purple light warms my left shoulder and mixes with the colours emanating from my heart reminding me that I am still loved no matter what my church says

Even though my guardian angel will continue to sit behind my back and slightly to the left until I can once again love his Father without presenting my internalized hatred as His own

Even though I still have panic attacks at the thought of crossing the threshold of such holy ground

I love the colours and flowers that have been patched into the quilt of my soul

I love the rainbows that God has painted into my skin with the watercolours of life and the billowing ink of a tenderness I am still learning to reciprocate

Even though I still stumble over His name and look to the sky for fire

I no longer satisfy the demons in my veins with the internalized animosity of homophobia and Catholic guilt, instead I force feed them a specialized virus bred from the petri dish of the heart I am still teaching to devote to itself first

I no longer hate myself for who I love

(Almost)

This is me being brave enough to read from my list

I will make my own church until they are ready to love me

I will keep searching until I find a face of God that I can love without the resentment of a queer Catholic

I am brave enough now to read from my list

(Almost)

**Author's Note:**

> Do your best to love yourselves <3


End file.
